A Study on Aristotle's Political Economy

In this study, Aristotle's notion of political economy was examined. What is meant by political economy is that the disciplines such as politics and morality, which have become separate disciplines from the modern period, exhibit a holistic structure that is intertwined in Aristotle's thought. Aristotle drew attention to the importance of economic activities in attaining happiness, which is the ultimate goal of human beings, but claimed that this should be considered in connection with disciplines such as politics and morality. Based on this claim, the focus of the study is to explain Aristotle's explanations regarding economic activities such as trade and agriculture, and how to understand his seemingly contradictory statements about the fields mentioned in Politics and Nicomachean Ethics. In particular, it will be tried to show that the reason for his negative judgments about trade is not an ideological bias, as some claim, but a necessity of his philosophy. The final claim of the study is that the Aristotelian view of political economy can provide a standard for criticizing the deficiencies of the modern capitalist economy.